


I pay for my place

by captainangua



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Coda, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kinda, Post-Episode: s15e09 The Trap, Sam Winchester Wants a Dog, Slice of Life, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), au from mid season, give him one please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22741186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: After their confrontation with Chuck, Sam finds a dog on the doorstep.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	I pay for my place

Sam was about to leave on a milk run when he opened the door and found the dog, who stayed sitting but stared as though it had been waiting for him.

The dog was… tiny, and seemed a little pathetic, but thanks to a lifetime of bad luck Sam couldn’t just dismiss it as harmless. So he regarded it for at least thirty seconds before crouching down and scratching it behind its round, whiskery ears.

“Hey there, little… fella.” The dog leaned into his hand slightly, and though its eyes were still sad, its tail started to wag weakly.

Smiling, Sam raised his other hand to ensure the dog was fully facing him. “You’d tell me if you were a shifter, right? Or another familiar?” Shuddering a little, Sam picked up the dog.

He took a few steps out and up from the Bunker’s door, quickly confirming that no one seemed to out looking for their newly lost dog. Sam didn’t want to think it, because the bedraggled little mutt reminded him painfully of the dog Rowena had once made of Jack, and because it was sitting so calmly in his arms, but that almost definitely meant this was something bad. Sighing, Sam pulled out the silver knife on his belt. When this garnered only mild interest from the dog, he smiled.

It was too unbelievable that this was just a nice thing that was happening. There were dozens of other creatures dying to gain entrance to the Bunker that it could be. Most likely this was another of Chuck’s games, leaving something out for Sam to find and thinking he knew what Sam would do before he did anything. Which he probably did.

But it was _very_ small.

“So, do you have a name?”

*

“Dean, he’s passed every test I can think to give him.”

“Oh, _sure_ , like that makes it safe to have living in our home where we sleep. In our home that’s full of magic superweapons.”

“Not a shifter, not cursed, not possessed, not a werewolf -”

“You thought _that -_ that tiny little thing could be a _werewolf_.”

Cas sighed and continued to stroke the small animal curled up on his lap, having already decided to drown out the rest of the Winchesters’ animated discussion regarding it. Sam wanted to keep the dog. Dean did not want to keep the dog, and wanted to ensure that his warnings that the dog was somehow evil had been heard before he let Sam keep the dog. As far as Cas was concerned, that was the summation.

“You didn’t see it out there, Dean. It could be that it’s a person needing our help.”

Cas had actually considered this. There was something intelligent and almost familiar about the dog’s energy, but he wasn’t sure of how to say that without Dean making fun of him. He was certain that the dog wasn’t evil, and though that maybe wasn’t enough the thought of having something around to look after again was an enticing one.

And a slightly frightening one.

He could easily imagine Chuck sending them something else to love only to watch him kill it. Not that Cas and his feelings would have been included in that scenario. It was always about what his main characters cared about, and Cas had never been one of those, despite several ill-advised attempts to make one of himself.

The dog’s tail started thumping down on Cas’s leg as the argument seemed to be finished with. Sam sat down on the stool next to Cas while Dean walked out of the room, flinging a hand dismissively in the air behind him.

“Don’t worry about Dean,” Cas said aloud. “He thinks that someone always needs to be the grumpy one in a room. More bark than bite.”

“Oh, I know -”?

“I’m – I’m talking to the dog, Sam.”

“ _Oh_.”

*

Dean usually enjoyed naming things. But their ugly, slightly listless little pet had lasted three days with them and was still nameless. It was hard to get behind the naming of something you didn’t want around.

It was just… _ridiculous_. The reason they’d never gotten a pet wasn’t a hard one to figure out. It was something else to take care of, to look after that couldn’t look after itself. Hell, they’d all died too often to even keep other people around in their lives for long - never mind animals.

Especially tiny, fluffy animals that had learnt to play fetch with Dean’s favourite kitchen spoon.

“How about… Dusty.”

Sam and Cas were both sitting at the kitchen bar watching Dean cook, and mercifully not commenting on the game of fetch - though Dean suspected they were just waiting for Dean to broach the subject himself. (The spoon was almost _longer_ than the dog’s entire body!)

Sam made a face, so Dean pressed on with more ideas. “Hulk. Brock. Dwayne.”

“Are all of these wrestling names? What, you think he’s a scrapper?”

“Nearly took my finger off the other day,” Dean pointed out.

Cas smiled. “You were trying to keep him back from his food.”

Something about the fondness that had crept back into the angel’s eyes again recently was… difficult to look at, so Dean turned his face back to his burgeoning chilli. Then he snapped his fingers, still not looking up. “I’ve got it. Gunner.”

“…Didn’t he try to kill us?”

“Well for all we know the dog’s also trying to kill us, so it’s perfect.”

Cas got down off the stool to grapple the spoon playfully out of the dog’s mouth, who gave it up trustingly. Yeah. Dean wished he was just playing up how suspicious he found the situation, but the animal did seem a lot more thoughtful than he’d ever expected one to be. It seemed stupid to think that something so mundane as a stray dog could willingly land in their laps. Even if it wasn’t evil, there had to be more to the situation.

But then, this wasn’t Sam’s first experience there, so maybe Dean couldn’t blame him for wanting to buy into it. But Cas was being _sappy_. He was acting soft again in a way Dean hadn’t seen him… well, since Jack.

Since the days leading up to Dean aiming a gun at their kid’s head.

_I failed you. I failed Jack._

But _Dean_ had failed. It was one thing to punch God in the face and tell him they weren’t gonna give him the ending he wanted. It was another one to actually see the ending coming in time to stop it, and Dean hadn’t the last time, not until that very last moment.

“What about angelic names?”

“Huh?”

Cas had his legs crossed now, and the dog seemed to be considering climbing into his lap. Sam had guessed that it was barely older than a puppy, but despite its age it seemed to carry itself with a weary dignity worthy of an old wizard.

Cas cocked his head to one side, and it was hard not to smile as they watched the dog mirror his movements. “Doesn’t he look a little like a Balthazar?”

“Does anything?” Sam said.

“Didn’t you actually kill him?”

Cas wrinkled his nose. “True. Hannah then.”

“Tried to kill Dean-”

Dean spluttered. “More importantly, Hannah’s a girl’s name.”

“Dogs, angels, and a good portion of humans don’t care as much about gendering words as you do, Dean,” Cas said, sterner now as he continued to stare at the dog, as though inviting it to share its thoughts with them. The dog, who was definitely not a Balthazar or a Hannah if Dean had any say at all, stared back and did not share.

*

Sam usually struggled with remembering how to hug people a lot smaller than him, but with Eileen she seemed to fit in his arms like she belonged there. Even if everything else about their interactions had gotten more awkward.

“Thanks for meeting me.

She shrugged, her lips tugging up in a smile she only looked a little uncomfortable with. “Well, you promised me a dog.” Her mouth split into a much wider grin as she looked down. “And he’s just _perfect_.”

“What are you calling him?” she stopped to ask when they’d been walking for some ten minutes, not saying much. Sam had thought that a walk with a dog around the local reservoir when she was near town anyway seemed like a safe enough thing to suggest, but it maybe wasn’t safe enough to force normalcy back on them. Sam wasn’t exactly practiced at keeping any kind of relationship long-term, so he probably wouldn’t know.

Sam was relieved when his gesturing at the bench they were about to pass by had her following him in sitting down. It was trickier to sign with a dog lead in one hand and he wanted to show off that he’d been practicing.

“Well, I like Scooby. Mostly because it annoys Dean.”

Her eyebrows raised. “You haven’t decided?”

“Not exactly. I think they’re worried that once we name him we’ll have to commit to keeping him.”

She smoothed a hand over the dog’s head. “And you’re sure he’s not another… trap?”

Sam was absolutely worried about exactly that.

“No.” He brushed his hair back behind his ear. “He seems like a… dog. A good dog,” he added, letting his voice get higher and sweeter. The dog basked in the praise and started wagging his tail furiously.

“And you just… found him on the doorstep? And that doesn’t seem suspicious?”

“I basically found you on the doorstop.”

Eileen…sort of smiled. Sam felt awful.

“Do you think -” she seemed unusually unsure of what to say next. “Do you think it would have been me you brought back if it wasn’t for…”

“For Chuck?”

Her hand fell limply away from the dog’s head. “Yeah.”

Sam shook his head, not needing to hesitate. “I think so. There’s a lot of people that have died that I – that I would like to bring back…” Sam paused. Something about the way that Eileen needed to see clearly what he was saying made him have to decide more about what he wanted to say before he said it. He liked the way it made him think. “But I don’t think there’s anyone I would have brought back over you.”

“Not even your Mom?”

He smiled. “I think she’d actually be pretty disappointed if she saw where we ended up, so, selfishly, it wasn’t actually on my mind. Much,” he added.

“Disappointed?”

“The way that she died… I think she died trying to get through to Jack. She risked everything. And after we lost her Dean gave up and I – I followed,” Sam finished lamely. It shouldn’t stand as an excuse, but he had nothing else to say. It felt like every time he made a decision alone he screwed it up in world-endingly bad fashion. It was easier playing second fiddle.

“…And besides. From what Cas said, she was at peace. I don’t know if I could drag her out of that again. Not when there was someone else actually needing help.” He risked a quick smile. “She’d have liked you, you know.”

“Maybe I’ll meet her one day and she can tell me so herself.” Eileen reached carefully for his hand. “I’ve learned not to rule anything out around you.”

*

“I’ve decided what he looks like.”

“Really?”

“He looks like the crazy knight in the _Labyrinth_ movie.”

Cas looked up from Sam’s laptop and smiled over at Dean, who’d been lying on the floor staring eye to eye with the dog for the last ten minutes. “Oh really?”

“Less whiskery, maybe.”

Not for the first time in recent weeks, Cas noticed that his gaze seemed to make Dean uncomfortable, so he dropped his eyes back to the laptop. He could feel how badly the man was brimming with longing to tell him something, but since he hadn’t figured out clearly enough what that something was and Cas always did his best not to pry into the surface thoughts of his friends’ thoughts, exactly what Dean wanted to tell him remained a mystery. But the tension of the unsaid things was becoming almost harder to stomach being in a room with than their not talking at all had been.

“I’m surprised you never wanted a pet. Growing up,” Cas said eventually as he pretended to focus on the tabs open on the screen.

Dean finally sat himself up, sparing the dog a final glare. The dog rolled happily onto its back. “We just couldn’t have had one. Sam was a kid, he never had to get that.”

 _You were a kid,_ Cas wanted to point out, but he hadn’t expected that Dean would have so much he was willing to say about this and he was reluctant to interrupt him.

“He kept on coming back to our Dad with new research he’d found – every other freakin’ day for a while. Telling us how dogs were supposed to be great for seeing ghosts, or recognising curses. How he’d get it trained up to help us out in fights.” He shook his head and leaned down to scratch at the dog’s belly. “I’d love to see him try that with this one.”

Cas smiled. Dean was finding it harder and harder to act grumpy around the dog.

“With the other shit that he used to nag about I’d take his side sometimes. But not with this one.” Dean shrugged. “It’s like I said already. We have trouble enough looking after ourselves.”

Dean checked his watch. “Anyway. Guess I’d better take this one out before it starts raining out there.”

“Well it still suits you,” Cas said, keeping his eyes studiously trained on the laptop.

“What does?”

“Looking after people.”

Cas could feel Dean still, his heartrate increasing slightly. What could he have said wrong now? Surely there hadn’t been much to _that_ which Dean could get jumpy over?

“Fine. I’m getting fond of the little… demon. But he’s not people, Cas.”

The little demon growled, acting for all the world as though he could hear them.

Dean got hastily up to his feet. “Can we just agree that was creepy?”

“I think he just knows you’re about to take him out and he’s getting impatient,” Cas soothed, not wanting to admit he also found it a little disquieting. This wasn’t the first time the dog had seemed to react to what they were saying.

Shaking his head again, Dean seemed torn between accusing the dog of something or cracking a bad joke. “Fine.”

It was when he was halfway up the stairs, dog following on the leash behind him, that he turned back, eyes alight again. “Rocky?”

“So, we’ve moved on to boxers now?”

Dean grinned. “I still can’t get used to you keeping up with references.”

“Well, I’m surprised it took you that long to get to that one.”

“Yeah, me too.”

*

Dean hated enforced exercise, but it turned out that just going for walks everyday with a fluffy rat creature that could barely keep pace with his stroll wasn’t so bad. It was actually kinda nice. It reminded him that maybe locking himself in the bunker every time they didn’t have a case to take him outside wasn’t exactly… healthy.

It was probably far too late on in life to start making healthy decisions, he thought, and for some reason the way Cas had looked at him earlier came to mind.

But hey this healthy decision was for the dog.

…the dog who was acting much weirder that even its usual weird self. For the last few yards it had been standing straight to attention. Dean had heard of pointer dogs before, but he’d never imagined one so tiny and scrawny looking.

And since he couldn’t see anything himself, he had no idea what the dog was trying to point at. It seemed more on edge than it usually did for squirrels.

“What do you see, bo – fuck, I’m not saying that,” Dean grumbled, clutching the dog lead a little tighter as he looked around.

He still didn’t see anything, which he hated. They were in an empty enough looking park, it wasn’t dark, and there didn’t seem to be anyone there. But the dog was still spooked, so Dean reluctantly slid his headphones down around his neck.

“You really are a twitchy little – _fuck_ -”

*

Dean slammed the bunker door behind him like all the hounds of Hell were after him.

Much as Sam hoped there weren’t any hellhounds after him, it was a little funny to watch his brother slide down the door in obvious relief, clutching the dog to his chest like a teddy bear with his face white as a sheet.

“Dean,” Cas said dependably, standing up from the chess game he and Sam had been about to start. It turned out that beating an angel at chess wasn’t impossible, but it was close enough to it, and Sam still wasn’t convinced Cas hadn’t just let him have the few wins he’d enjoyed in their times playing. He was a hard one to ever completely figure out, angels being pretty unknowable creatures, Sam reminded himself, as Cas rushed over to take the dog and support Dean’s arm.

…in most areas, at least.

“Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Ha…” Dean paused to gasp. “Ha. Fuck you.”

Now that his hands were free of the dog, which Cas was now fussing over, smoothing over its little fluffy curls that never sat flat, Dean slapped his hands down on his knees to steady himself.

“Was a demon.”

Sam blinked. “They usually stay clear. Was it in a local? Have they been watching us?” He stood back, looking Dean up and down. “Did you even bring any weapons?”

Still crouching, Dean raised one hand off his knee to slice through the air as he shook his head. “Demon’s not the point.” His hand pointed at the dog. “He’s the point. He exorcised the demon.”

The dog, still being petted at by Cas, now looked mildly alarmed at the attention.

“This dog?”

Cas clutched the dog tighter as his look of concern only increased. “Dean…”

“I’m not nuts, I wasn’t bashed over the head and I’m not cursed,” Dean snapped at them. “I saw something weird, but we deal in weird, so listen to me.” He stood himself up straight and leant back against the wall. As he looked at the dog he almost seemed… guilty.

“Sammy, you said you thought it might have been someone needing our help?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah – but, Dean it’s been weeks…”

“Well, I think you’re right. Hell, I hope you’re right, or else…” Dean trailed off, still staring at the dog, like he was waiting for it to say something. “I think that’s Jack,” he croaked.

“You think the _dog_ is _Jack_?”

Cas was already spinning the dog around to face him, saying nothing as he anxiously took in the dog’s whole body.

“Dean are you sure this isn’t some kind of… of grief thing?”

Dean flung his arms away from him. “We deal with grief all the time! At this point grief is like most of our personalities. Why would this be any different?”

“…Guilt? And no offence, Dean, but after Cas last time you weren’t exactly…”

The look of rage in his brother’s eyes kept Sam from continuing.

“I know what I saw. That sonic blast wave thing Jack used to do – the dog just did that. But as a bark,” Dean added, more sheepish now. “Like…” Dean opened and closed his mouth a few times to make the point.

“Dean, that’s -”

“Right,” Cas said, his voice painfully soft. “Dean, you’re _right_.” With great care, Cas set the dog down on the chessboard. Several of the main black pieces clattered to the floor. One of them was a King, Sam noticed absently, as he watched the dog that might also be Jack watch it hit the ground. It was So funny – up until now he’d seemed like the quietest, calmest dog Sam had ever been around, but now he was acting agitated, almost like he thought he was cornered.

“Cas…are you sure?” Sam asked.

Dean was frozen to his spot, like he was terrified of the ramifications people actually believing him were going to have.

Cas bent down slowly and looked the dog in the eyes. “When I was thrown out of the Empty I came back completely the same. This body had been remade, but I’d been left in a place I’d never been, and my clothes were all new.”

“The coat,” Dean agreed, nodding.

Sam hadn’t noticed that Cas’s coat was any different, but decided it wouldn’t help to point this out.

“And that was with me being pushed out. I think we can assume Jack brought himself here – that he did this to himself.”

Unsure if he didn’t want to believe yet to try and prevent Dean and Cas, who already seemed to be so invested, so certain of this, or himself, Sam looked more closely at the dog. Then he cleared his throat. “I did, uh. I always thought he looked kind of like him. Not like _our_ Jack – but when Rowena was trying to get us into that vet’s office and she made Jack look like a dog…” He scratched the back of his head, inching away from them. “I just figured it was wishful thinking.”

“So we can assume then that this is a form he chose. Perhaps unconsciously – if he was worried about seeing us again…”

Dean nodded and crouched down next to Cas. “Right, sure. Life’s easier when people can’t expect much out of you. I get it, I’ve been a dog before – sort of.” Dean swallowed. “But you got to step up sometime, everybody does.” Carefully, so carefully, Dean patted at the dog’s head. “And we’ll love you either way.”

Sam felt a little choked up by how easily those words seemed to come out of Dean, an effect only slightly ruined by his rother turning his face up to him. “Am I going mad? Are we just talking to a dog here?”

“No,” Cas said, sounding more certain than Sam had heard him sound in years. “No, this is Jack.”

*

Being a dog _was_ easier.

When Jack was born he’d known he couldn’t be an infant; couldn’t be a child, because his mother had known that being stuck in either one of those states with the world hunting him would make him far too vulnerable. So he’d become the strangest kind of young adult – new to the world, but able to face it with logic and physical strength, even when he’d lost his powers.

And now he’d known he had to come back, because the world needed him. His family needed him, and he’d been able to regain his soul, so that meant something. And because he could. But maybe Cas was right – he hadn’t felt ready to make himself vulnerable in the ways that mattered.

Even this – them all being aware of him being there with them – was so much harder than the weeks he’d spent as a dog, allowing his form to inform his motions and actions and needs. He’d been able to love them in an easier, more basic way, and had mostly kept himself from listening too closely to their words. Tone was easier to grasp. And actions. They’d fed him, he loved them. Something wanted to hurt Dean and he couldn’t let that happen.

And now Dean was standing apart from him again and Sam looked like he didn’t want to believe what was going on but also like he wanted to cry and Cas’s face was next to his.

When he’d first been born he’d _known_ that if anyone could keep him safe that it was Cas. Cas, his chosen, real father, who loved him enough to doom the world.

Now he’d lived, and died – more than once - Jack knew that wasn’t true. It was the same delusion that every child needed to have, that nothing in the big, bad world was stronger than the fierceness of their parent’s love for them. Jack wasn’t a new child anymore. He knew that in most ways you could categorise it that he was and is much stronger than Castiel.

But now he was smaller than he had ever been and Cas was staring at him, starting to smile the way Jack had only seen him do for him. It was a Fatherly Smile, and it was painful to look at, but impossible, now, too look away from.

This angel had given up any chance he would ever have at real happiness, just to see Jack safe. And Jack hadn’t even managed to keep himself that way for long. He’d let him down – let them all down.

“Sometimes it’s hard to come back and fix things if you feel like you’ve broken them. But you’re not in this alone.” His eyes were brimming with a very human amount of hope. “And I see you, Jack.”

And just like that, Jack remembered how to grow up.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so we’ve had sam come back soulless, cas come back an amnesiac and dean come back a demon so i just wanted a litttttttle more focus and drama on their son’s return much as I loved the episode and don’t for a second think I handled this any better. Like this got too long and didn't really say anything.  
> (Also after this they realise that they miss having a dog and they get Sam a real one he actually gets to keep.)


End file.
